Bison Organic Gingerbread Ale
Name – Bison Organic Gingerbread Ale
Country – United States
Type – Spiced Beer
Appearance – Pours a very dark and opaque brown with some lighter shades of brown around the edges of the glass. There was really no head at all on either bottle I poured.
Smell – Cinnamon, nutmeg, some cloves and a faint ginger smell.
Taste – Sweet caramel with cinnamon and nutmeg. Just a tad bit of gingerbread taste at the end.
I love gingerbread so this was a no brainer for me to pick up. And while I enjoyed the beer as a whole I was disappointed by how faint the gingerbread smells and tastes were in it. As I tend to do when grading beers that say they have rye in them I guess I expect the taste of those to punch me in the face. I also found it very odd that Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead had a more defined gingerbread taste to it and they are suppose to be a pumpkin beer. As a beer itself I really enjoyed it but as a person expecting lots of gingerbread goodness I was a bit let down.
Overall Grade – C
Posted on December 15th, 2009 under Grade C, Spiced Beer • Tags: Bison Brewing Co.. • 
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December 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I just can’t seem to get behind spiced beers, they are either to much or not enough to meet the concept. It is just something that doesn’t work for me on a whole. After a continuous string of let downs, including my own homebrews, I’m pretty much done with the style. But, I’ll probably keep trying to find one i like…
December 15th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Hi, Mike,
I’m the owner and brewer of Bison. Sorry you felt let down, but in all my brews, I try not to clobber the drinker over the head with spices/cocoa/yeast flavors/etc, only hint at it. So your comments are right on, its just that each of us had different goals for the bottle of beer you had before you! I want you to be able to drink two or three of my brews in a row and really enjoy each one with food or friends without thinking, geez, this is sickly sweet, or this is way too spicey. I remember I started thinking this way in the mid 90′s when I overdid it with peppermint Altoids. Boy it took a long time to drink those few cases of winter homebrew!
Enjoy your beer adventures. Hope you give my brews another shot!
Dan
December 15th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Dan, thanks for stopping by. I have enjoyed your IPA previously and I have been told numerous time to try your Chocolate Stout and I definitely will someday. I never let one beer turn me off from a brewer. Even my most favorite breweries have some things that I don’t like. But you are doing a great job and living the dream of owning a craft brewery. Keep up the good work and thank you again for coming by.